Hey guys (and girls),

I'm new to VS and TCGs in general, having only been playing about a month. I was looking through the list of events and see that there are lots of players in Canada and North America, and even Australia and South East Asia, but seems like there is almost no VS action in Japan. I'm heading over there for a job in a few weeks, and would really like to continue playing VS, but with no other players that may prove tough.

So I have a few questions for you more-knowledgable folk.

1. Are there any players in Japan on the boards here?
2. Any ideas on why there don't seem to be many / any Japanese players?
3. What would be the best way to generate some interest in the game once I get there? Hosting a tournament, chatting with the local game-shop owners? Both, neither, something else?
And last: If I were to try setting up a small sealed-pack tourney or something, any advice? I have no idea how to go about doing something like that. I assume it'd be best to go through Upper Deck and do it as part of the Hobby League, but have am just guessing here.

Well, this is just a guess, but when VS rolled out, they were able to use all there YGO contacts all over the world to get the game rolling out fast.

Well, UDE does not have licensing rights to YGO in Japan because Konomi does it themselves. In otherwords, they did not have a distribution framework set up in Japan and have to start from stratch so to speak.

And as for your specific questions

1. No idea, but if they are here, I'm sure they will say something.

2. See answer above

3. Find a local game store and try to get them to order product. I do not think the game has been translated into Japanese yet, so that may be an issue.

Take your TO test and you will have all the resources you need to run official tournaments. In order to be a part of hte Hobby League, I think you have to have an actual store.

I hadn't even thought of the distribution network being different in Japan, but that makes good sense. The translation factor could be a problem too. I'm a native english speaker and some of the wording on a few cards leaves ME confused on occasion. I've heard that Magic is played quite heavily in Japan, would Magic cards sold in Japan be in English or Japanese? Does anyone know?

TO test? I assume that means "tournament operator"... *goes to UDE to look it up*

I'm in the LA area and I've seen Magic cards in Japanese, so I would assume that Magic cards sold in Japan would be Japanese, unless of course the Japanese cards I've seen are all fake. They looked real enough to me, but I haven't played MTG in years so I have no real idea what the English equivalents are of the cards I saw.

Yeah, WoTC releases new sets in multiple languages all at the same time, including Japanese.

I know UDE has translated to a few languages, but I don't think Japanese is one of them. I'm sure it is one of the many things they are trying to do.

TO stands for Tournament Organizer

The on-line test are available here

http://www.upperdeckentertainment.co...rtprogram.aspx

Cool, thanks for the link and the information. I'm going to read through that stuff in the next few days. Might be a good place to start.